Modul

The module examination takes place in the form of partial examinations in accordance with § 4 Para. 2 No. 1 - No. 3 SPO via courses of the module amounting to a total of at least 9 LP.
The overall score of the module is formed from the credit-weighted scores of the partial examinations and truncated after the first decimal place.

Students

• understand services from different perspectives, the concept of value creation in service systems as well as the economic foundations and key components or platforms
• get familiar with concepts, methods and tools for the design, modelling, development and management of digital services and platforms
• understand the categories and trends of platforms as providers of digital services
• gain experience in group work as well as in the analysis of case studies and the professional presentation of research results
• are enabled to design new platforms based on a business idea.

The “Information Systems & Digital Business” modules of the research groups of Prof. Dr. Alexander Mädche (Information Systems & Service Design), Prof. Dr. Gerhard Satzger (Digital Service Innovation) and Prof. Dr. Christof Weinhardt (Information & Market Engineering), offer a comprehensive overview on important topics of digitalization – blending aspects of digital interaction, digital services and the platform economy. 

Courses in this module cover the technical and economic aspects of digital services as well as their application in the platform economy: 

• Digital Services: The global economy is increasingly determined by services: in industrialized countries, nearly 70% of gross value added is achieved in the tertiary sector. For the design, development and the management of services traditional “goods-focused” concepts are often insufficient or inappropriate – even more so, if companies reap the ample opportunities to offer digital services. The course is centered around the concepts of joint value creation within service systems. It covers the theoretical background of services and service innovation, technical and economic aspects of cloud and cloud labor services as well as webservices. It focusses on the potential to leverage data for novel digital services and business models and to form dynamic and scalable service value networks. It comprises hands-on experience to conceive and build novel digital, cloud-based services. 

• Platform Economy: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, und Facebook; five of the most valuable companies worldwide create large portions of their profits employing a digital platform model. This module teaches the key design considerations of digital platforms: their foundations in economic theory, their core components and design aspects, the adequate selection of market mechanisms for achieving certain goals and the role of user behavior in the context of digital platforms. The theoretic foundations are enriched by discussions of several real-world examples, e.g. from the finance sector. Thus, the students are enabled to a) analyze given platforms and make recommendations for improvements and b) independently design new platforms for given use cases.

Total effort for 9 credit points: approx. 270 hours. The distribution is based on the credit points of the courses of the module (120-135h for courses with 4.5 credit points). The total number of hours per course results from the effort required to attend lectures and exercises, as well as the examination times and the time required to achieve the learning objectives of the module for an average student for an average performance.